To Distance
by Crina
Summary: The life of James Potter II from birth to adulthood. Response to the Life Challenge by mustardgirl1128.
1. Childhood

**A/N:** Will eventually have three chapters. Enjoy the first one and remember that reviews are always nice!

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**Childhood**

Birth - 2004

The 16th of November 2004 has been unusually peaceful day in St Mungo's maternity ward, and Healer Lisa Turpin hopes (quite foolishly, as she later admits) that the following night shift will be just as quiet as the day has been.

Little before eleven her hopes crash down when the situation changes, and with a sigh she abandons her cup of coffee. Young, pale and very terrified-looking man she remembers from her school days (and, more importantly, from various newspapers) brings his redheaded, growling wife in.

Midnight comes and goes before the baby is finally ready to leave its warm little home, and Healer Turpin hurries to give Mrs Potter more potion to ease her pain. It isn't until four AM when the little baby boy (little to his parents, at least, but in Healer Turpin's experienced eyes this baby is perfectly average size) arrives to the world after many "You're doing great, honey"s from the husband and lot of cursing from the new mother.

Next day, after Lisa Turpin has gone home to enjoy her day off, dozens of visitors (seventeen if you count the little children) come to adore this new addition to their family. Little James Sirius Potter doesn't have any idea who all those people are, but he senses their love surrounding him and feels safe.

World - 2008

The world is such a great (and a little scary) thing in James' four-year-old eyes. He plays in the snow and builds a snow-wizard with Daddy, and has already started to wait for Christmas impatiently. _Five _weeks, how can he possibly wait for so long?

"You could play with Al", Mummy suggests after James has told her for millionth time he's bored. Mummy is in the kitchen, reading a book to Albus, keeping on eye on the pie in the oven _and_ cradling Lily to sleep at the same time. Like always, James is awed by Mummy's talents, and promises himself that someday he will marry someone who is as pretty and skilled as Mummy.

But even if Mummy is perfect, she doesn't seem to realise that James can't play with a baby like Al. James is _four_ and a big boy, Al is _two_ and a tag-along. So James just tickles sleeping Lily under her chin, (gently) kicks Al and runs out to play in the snow again until Daddy calls him inside and says it's time to brush his teeth and go to sleep.

Harry tucks James in and watches how he falls asleep slowly. Ginny appears behind his back and presses her head against his shoulder.

"He is growing up so fast", she whispers sadly and Harry nods. He knows that someday the world is going to turn his little Jamie to a grown man, make him move away, have a family of his own. But it's not going to happen quite yet, and Harry is glad about that.

Family - 2010

It's just another Weasley family Christmas and happy chatter and excited squeals fill the Burrows.

James is happy that Uncle Charlie is here this year, but he thinks secretly that Uncle could have left Owen and Kitty to Romania. James can stand Jude – he is only four like Al and Rose and Lucy, and doesn't do anything interesting, but at least he stays near Auntie Aileen and doesn't harass James like Albus does.

Uncle Bill sits on the floor playing chess with Molly (kindly letting her win) and holds the newest cousin, Louis, in his arms. Auntie Audrey and Freddie comfort little Roxy, who has fallen over and scraped her knee, while Uncle Percy is watching over Johnny, who walks around with his little legs shaking.

James can't see Teddy's yellow, black-striped hair anywhere and knows he is upstairs with old cousins, Victoire, Owen and Kitty, having an own little circle with them. It makes James feel lonely and his lower lip trembles a bit. With Freddie worrying over his sister's knee, James is all alone here.

And suddenly he feels a pair of warm arms around him. Grandma lifts him up and holds him in her lap and James rests his shining black head against her chest. No, he's not alone at all, there is someone for him too.

Grandma carries him to the kitchen, where Mummy, Auntie Fleur and Uncles George and Ron are sitting around a table and laughing at some story Uncle George is telling. James slips to the bench between Mummy and Uncle Ron, and receives a gingerbread from Grandma and a pat on his head from Uncle Ron.

Yes, it's just another Weasley family Christmas and James is happy.


	2. The School Years

**A/N:** The second part is here!

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**The School Years**

School - 2016

From the first moment James sees Hogwarts, he loves it. He (like every child of Weasleys and Potters) has heard stories of it since he was just a little baby, and he had expected so much from the school he was sure he was going to get disappointed.

But now he is there and Hogwarts is so much more he ever could have dreamed of. He loves the rambling corridors and paintings and Gryffindor's common room and Hagrid's hut and the Astronomy Tower and every student and teacher there is (well, not all of them – Professor Binns, for example, is quite _dry_, and James is little, but just _little_, afraid of the Slytherin Prefect Valentin Zabini).

His first Potions lesson is a pleasant surprise. He likes the professor, a middle-aged, friendly witch immediately, and making potions is peculiarly calming. From that very first lesson he is the best of his class and a pet of the professor.

James loves Hogwarts so much that for few months he can go around not paying attention to the staring and whispers and those irritating little sentences his teachers say far too often, such as "You look _just_ like your father, except with your mother's eyes" and "What a potion-maker you already are, that _must_ come from your grandmother Lily."

After some of the Hogwarts' magic fades away and becomes a normal part of his life, James can't help noticing all this. He can ignore staring and whispers, and actually gets used to them after a while (though he never learns to enjoy of them), but the teachers' words are harder not to care about.

There is the question hanging in the air, embarrassing and sickening one that causes sleepless nights and days when he can hardly get up from the bed.

Is he good at things only because of his genes?

Death - 2018

Death visits James for the first time when he is thirteen.

Of course he has known for years that every living thing must die and stay dead. He has seen the looks on adults' faces when they talk about war and people they lost because of it, and knows that when your loved one dies, you will never quite get over the pain. He knows that death is an ultimate change, but it has to happen at some point.

Knowing can't help him when Dad carries Felina's cold and lifeless body inside and tells them she is dead, gone for ever.

Lily starts sobbing and Al's eyes water, but James can't do anything else than just stare at the cat that just yesterday was still breathing and purring and living. Was there with him. Little silky black and white Felina is no more. James won't ever again wake up in the middle of the night to notice that Felina sleeps cuddled against his chest, he can't bury his face to Felina's smooth fur anymore.

_Gone_, just like that.

They say that after death has touched your life once, something changes for forever. Next day James really talks about death with his father for the first time ever, and knows it's true. Something has changed and nothing can bring back the lost innocence.

Friend - 2021

James sits on the edge of Fred's bed, arms soothingly around his friend's shaking shoulders, imagining all kinds of things he would like to do to that _witch_ Finnigan when he sees her next time. James has always liked Abbey Finnigan, but right now he is ready to kill her.

Or no, not kill – first he would rip off those perfect little nails of hers, all ten of them, strangle her, then burn her body and throw it to the lake and let the giant squid eat what has been left of her. Yes, that sounds more what a – a slut like her deserves for dumping his best friend like that. By kissing another boy in front of not only Fred, but the whole common room, breaking Freddie's heart in the process.

That tramp.

Right now James, however, can't go after Abbey and fulfill his rather violent thoughts. Now he has to sit next to Fred, hold him close and tell that she never deserved a boy like Fred anyway. Because _that_ is what best friends do.

They have been best friends for their whole lives, born four months and few weeks apart (James is the older one and never gets tired of reminding Fred about that). In Hogwarts they ended up to the same house and it was Fred who encouraged him to try out to Gryffindor's Quidditch team (he is a Chaser and if he has to listen someone saying even once more that he has inherited his mother's and grandfather James' talents, he is going to punch that person), and it's Fred whose cheers mean most to him. He loves Fred, and Fred loves him.

That doesn't mean they are inseparable, that James found out in a nasty way when Fred received a Prefect badge eight months ago, little before the beginning of their fifth year. James knew that being a Prefect was an honour neither Fred or James senior never got and was proud of his best friend, closest cousin, for having it. But there was a hint of jealousy quickly suppressed under the flow of congratulations and James hated himself for it. Because _that_ is not what best friends do.

Now he sits there, arms around Fred's shoulders, saying comforting words. They are not really needed, because Fred knows James can feel his pain, but James says them anyway, a hand wandering brotherly way in his friend's fine red hair.

He knows very well that, hints of jealousy or not, Fred would do the same for him any day.

Hatred - 2023

"That must come from your mother."

For a moment – during those three seconds when he swallows, jumps up and looks at his father's eyes challengingly – James thinks he is finally going to lose it. But then he regains control, doesn't do anything he might later regret, just runs away.

He received an owl three days after the graduation. It flew in from an open window during the breakfast and James' stomach turned suddenly upside-down. They couldn't be the N.E.W.T.-results, they couldn't, couldn't...

And they weren't. He opened the letter with shaking fingers, but once he had read three words he understood this was not the feared letter. James glanced through the letter, almost tasting the relief in his mouth, not realising that the rest of his family was exchanging knowing looks after noticing it was from the manager of Appleby Arrows, a team that had just lost one Chaser when she had decided it was time to retire.

Now, two weeks later James clenches two different letters in his fists. Another contains his test results and the other is a message from the editor of the Daily Prophet. _'Unfortunately we are not hiring more journalists right now, but we are interested by your articles and would like to buy some of them in the near future...'_

This, this is his dream, his carefully cherished wish coming true. He loves Quidditch, but abandoned a thought of it as a profession long time ago. Writing is what he loves, and today he should be celebrating because finally he is going to be something more than just a son of Harry and Ginny Potter.

But the thoughtless sentence escaped from his father's lips, and now hatred ruins what is supposed to be the happiest day of his life.


	3. After School

**A/N:** After over a month, here is the last chapter.

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**After School**

Romance - 2023

It's raining when James sits in the warm café and admires his first published article, they way his name looks under it, how this little piece is his and only his. He loves each word and dreams of the day in future when he has saved enough money to have an apartment and independence.

That same, rainy day he meets Bess Callahan, though he doesn't know her name then. She sits in the next table, dripping water to the floor and looking like she has a very bad cold (she _has_, James decides when she sneezes rather unattractively). She is not very good-looking with her red nose and constant sniffing, but then the waitress (Bess' co-worker, as James learns soon) makes a joke and Bess laughs. Just a little laugh, but it makes James turn his head and look at her a second time.

At Hogwarts he was always more popular with girls than Freddie or Al, but that really didn't mean anything – Freddie burned his fingers couple of times and then found solace in Alison Longbottom, while Al spent six years out of seven wishing that Alisa Mari Sheinfeld would look at him even once. James himself had four girlfriends, and his longest relationship lasted almost a year, and for the first time after that relationship he thinks he might need some romance to his life.

He doesn't usually get shy around girls (just like he doesn't get shy around boys), but he feels little anxious as he goes to Bess' table, though he doesn't know if it's because the girl or her cold.

Bess has a nice smile as well as laugh.

Grief - 2024

It's the most beautiful spring he has ever lived through, until one day he hears the news and sits down, his head and limbs heavy.

Auntie Aileen has died, only a month before her youngest child's eighteenth birthday, suddenly, without any warnings.

Instead of Romania, Aileen is buried to England, next to her long gone brothers and father. James is at the funeral and thinks he can never forget it – Auntie Aileen's mother who has had to bury all her four children, the funny look on Uncle Charlie's face, how Jude's eyes are full of tears he won't cry until the night has come and he is all alone. And how Kitty, the much hated cousin of James', stands between her brothers, looking like a walking dead in her black and white.

The ceremony is awful and James is glad when it ends, when he can go away from the white, beautifully carved coffin. After the funeral they all go to Burrows, except little Jude who slips away quietly as a ghost. They sit there and silence is so hard it hurts their ears, and James hates this too, because Auntie Aileen never liked long, pressuring silences.

He gets up and leaves the room, leaves the silence, and goes outside where sun lits the ground and birds are singing like everything is like it used to be.

Kitty is sitting there, leaning her back against the tree trunk. James hesitates for a split second before walking to her and sitting next to her. She doesn't look at him, just stares before her, and James touches her hand.

"I –", he starts, but cuts it off.

"I know", she replies, still not looking at him.

They just are there for some time, and the Kitty lowers her head slowly until it presses against his shoulder and then they just sit there, in odd kind of hug until she is ready to let go.

Life - 2028

It's the 17th of November 2028 and James Potter's twenty-fourth birthday. He celebrates the day by having a few drinks with Fred, Al and Jude, and after that he walks home, hands buried to the pockets and thinks of his life.

To someone else the house he is living in could be a nightmare – he is stuck in a far too little flat in Muggle London, and not alone, but with Bess, who has been his fiancée for some months now.

His dad has offered to buy them a bigger and more comfortable apartment numerous times, but James has refused every time. He knows every flaw of their place, from tricky doorknobs to neighbours who start to make noise at two AM. He knows everything, but loves it anyway – because it's his home and it has been bought with the money he earned himself.

Al and Lily both have nice, roomy apartments in areas where people actually sleep at nights instead of drinking beer and then having a lovely little row with their families. James has visited them plenty of times, but always comes home with no envy. This flat is his, and he shares it with his girlfriend, who works overtime in the little café and comes home ready to fall straight to the bed, forgetting every important date and anniversary because that's just who she is (James knows she hasn't forgotten what day today is, because he has found a pile of notes saying _!!REM!! J's b-d 17 Nov!_).

Maybe some day James will write a world-famous book and they can find a fancier place to live. But to tell the truth – he really doesn't look for that day. He couldn't be more content with what they have now. The broken furniture, bills they can hardly pay at times, fighting, making up, shouting, cuddling and lots of love – he wouldn't have it in any other way.

This is his life and he loves it.


End file.
